Google's search results are undergoing their most radical transformation ever, as a new "Search Plus Your World" format begins rolling out today. It finds both content that's been shared with you privately along with matches from the public web, all mixed into a single set of listings. The change is live now, though not everyone will see it until it fully launches over the next few days. It's only for those signed-in to Google.com and searching in English. You'll know when it happens, because Google will alert you with a message like this above your search results: The new system will [...]

Related Topics: Features: Analysis | Google: Google+ | Google: Personalized Search | Google: Search Plus Your World | Google: Social Search | Top News

Add-on commenting systems like Facebook Comments enhance the user experience, but can make it harder for search engines to index content.  Most third party commenting systems leverage javascript to display information and add bells and whistles.  However, Labnol.org reported that now Facebook Comments are being crawled (and ranking) in Google's SERPs effectively breaking the mold for third party commenting systems and rankings: Facebook Comments can be displayed in a few different formats, XFBML (Xtended FaceBook Markup Language) and HTML5.  While the report references that Google i [...]

Related Topics: Google: Social Search

Google has been making a big deal out of privacy lately, but Google+ just launched a slew of new features designed to make people easier to find. I am particularly intrigued by the new Ripples feature, which allows you to see who has shared a post and track it as it gets shared by others. It is, in fact, like watching a ripple. Ripples strikes me as much more of a feature for marketers than for consumers. I suppose Google+ wants to attract power users who typically have more of a marketing mindset than the average Joe. So of course the first thing I thought of was that Ripples would [...]

Related Topics: Google: Social Search | Local Search

Google has added another source to its social search results: public posts from Google Plus. Social search has been adding annotations to search results when content from your social connections (not to be confused with your Google+ Circles) was shared on services such as Twitter, LinkedIn and others. Soon you may start seeing annotations that mention Google's own social service, and these will come from people in your Google+ circles: Google emphasizes that this only applies to public posts on Google+, and that it'll only work for you if you're a Google+ user that's signed in to [...]

Related Topics: Google: Google+ | Google: Social Search | Top News

Want to rank better on Google? Get people to add you to their Google+ Circles, and that seems to be a potentially huge boost, based on a search I just did. I'm Friends With Ford When I looked for cars about an hour ago, I found a listing for Ford at the bottom of the first page of results, in the 10th position. In addition, there was an enhancement telling me that Ford had shared this link: Interesting. Why is Ford showing up and with that enhancement in my results? Hovering my mouse over the Ford Motor Company link displayed this: Indeed, I am connected to Ford through Google Plus. Fo [...]

Related Topics: Features: Analysis | Google: +1 | Google: Google+ | Google: Social Search | Top News